The place where I document the stupid stuff I do
We had a pizza party. Sarah, Dan and Freddie came over and later on we got a fire going. We positioned the fire under the sail shade and did some rough calculations about (3*pi*r)^3 or some such bollocks and decided the heat from the fire wouldn’t set fire to the sail shade. We forgot to factor in the embers being thrown out of the fire:
Cause:
Effect:
Fortunately nobody died or anything.
Oli bought me Elden Ring for my birthday in 2025. I played it on and off. Kept forgetting important stuff and basically rocking a magic build which is pretty good at keeping you away from trouble but not so good against bosses.
In March I set myself the goal of getting better at the game.
It was when I read about a rune farming trick where you shoot the bird and it runs off the edge of the cliff and dies and then you rest at the site of grace and it respawns…repeat, that I started improving massively. Suddenly runes don’t really matter and you can spend some time farming runes and levelling up your character and weapons. The entire game changed!
It took me a looooong time to kill the Fire Giant, it took me even longer to kill Mohg and I didn’t even get a percentage bump for killing him, but then I started powering though the game with help from Claude. This game is so god damned big that you really do need an AI agent to suggest tactics and where to go next.
This was after some epic boss battle – can’t remember which but whilst Oli was off on his second ski holiday of the year I managed to beat the Elden Beast and finish the game. According to Sony only 10% of players do this. Quite impressed with myself.
I’m now on my second play through and absolutely loving it.
Twenty years ago we moved into our house. From a tiny two bedroom apartment in Altrincham to a proper big house with loads of space. I built sheds, I bought furniture, we ate off cardboard boxes for a while….and I bought a wine rack. I’ve always enjoyed wine. Everything about it. Choosing it in the shop, deciding which one to drink, opening it, decanting it, tasting it and then falling over drunk. Love it!
So I found a cupboard just off the, well, it’s the kitchen now, back then it was the conservatory, and it seemed a perfect place to keep wine. For some bizarre reason I put the wine rack on the side wall.
The cupboard itself was a proper shit tip – as you can see above. Crisps, cordials and bizarrely a discarded receipt just lying around on the floor. Bare plaster walls. Unpainted shelves.
This absolutely would not do.
I measured up the wine rack and it appeared it would fit perfectly on the back wall. I took down the shelves that were in there and decided to rearrange them somewhat and changed the shelf holders and painted them white. Also the bare bulb [ hanging out of the ceiling ] and the pull chord [ also hanging out of the ceiling ] would have to go.
I bought a 5m Philips Hue lightstrip and a Hue PIR so that when I open the wine cupboard doors it notices the movement and lights the room up. There’s even a second or so delay that just adds to the theatre of the whole thing. Beautiful.
I painted the walls with some matt paint I bought from B&M – never ever again. It took about 5 coats and if you so much as look at the wall it will leave scuff marks. One of these days I’ll buy some proper paint and do it again….but for now….check this shit out….
My daughter tells me the photo doesn’t do it justice. She says it looks better in real life. The floor needs a steam clean, the wire to the light strip needs clipping to the skirting board, and as I said – the walls need painting again. But it now gives me joy every god damned time I open the doors. Sometimes I just open the doors to have a look – don’t even bother getting wine out.
“You’re twisting my melon man”
A while ago I was minding my own business having a spot of breakfast when Shaun Ryder and Bez turned up on the BBC Breakfast sofa talking about an upcoming tour. There and then I bought tickets for the Manchester gig.
“Call the fucking cops there’s a Beswick in town”
I even bought a souveneir ticket for a few quid…
“It’s gotta be a loose fit”
Much fun was had by all and we weren’t disappointed by the egregious prices being charged for a beer!